By Dee Longfellow
For The Elmhurst Independent
At a meeting of the Elmhurst City Council on Monday, Oct. 19, a measure was passed to move forward with a pedestrian/bicycle bridge to be constructed over Route 83 just north of North Avenue.
The Public Works and Building Committee (PWB) presented a recommendation to approve a funding resolution grant request for the Illinois Route 83 Pedestrian/Bicycle Bridge Project. The City’s request for funding is related to the Illinois Transportation Enhancement Program (ITEP).
As part of the ITEP grant application, the Illinois Department of Transportation (IDOT) requires that any community applying for federal grant funding have funds reserved or appropriated to cover that community’s share of the project costs. In this case, the City’s share is expected to be $400,000.
Earlier this year, the City received Surface Transportation Project (STP) funding for the project through the DuPage Mayors and Managers Conference (DMMC) under the Traffic Control Measures (TCM) category.
Through the TCM category of the STP, the project was approved for $1,934,300, which represents 75 percent of the overall estimate of $2.58 million. The City is currently in the midst of a Phase I design of the project (preliminary engineering). Phase II, or final engineering, is scheduled to begin in 2022. The current ITEP grant request is for $176,000, which is 80 percent of the Phase II engineering costs.
The committee recommended the approval of the funding agreement with IDOT, and that the City Council suspend the rules to allow approval of the necessary documents to be approved at the same meeting. The recommendation passed 9-1 with three absent and one vacant seat.
The project’s planned purpose
The City’s motive for building the pedestrian/bicycle overpass bridge over Route 83 is to help unify the community and create a non-motorized connection to other communities and adjacent bicycle trails, while providing a safe alternative to an at-grade crossing, deemed too dangerous especially for pedestrians.
With federal funding available, Alderman Bob Dunn (2nd) noted that it made no sense to postpone the project. He expressed how the project would link north Elmhurst to the greenspace along the Salt Creek Greenway Trail on the west side of Route 83. At this time, there is virtually no safe way to cross Route 83 north of North Avenue.
“We would be foolhardy not to move forward with it,” Dunn said.
